COMPLETE: Weekly Poetry - I Do Not Love Thee, by Norton

tis · Post by **tis** » January 2nd, 2006, 8:39 pm

Excellent poem!

http://goringe.net/librivox/i_do_not_love_thee_norton_cmg.mp3

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » January 3rd, 2006, 1:16 am

Annie,

I liked this one; gentle and human.

I choose poems to read by going through Bartleby's index for first lines that I feel comfortable reading, then look at the poem to see how it flows. I'm a bit of a philistine, poetically speaking, so tend to avoid o'ers and other poetical contractions, which I feel are a little like cheating to correct the scansion. .... and my search also, unfortunately, tends to eliminate Shakespeare's verse, which often has wonderful first lines but then becomes very difficult (for me) to understand.

As I say, a philistine, whose only failed exam at 16 years old (some goodly time ago) was English Literature. I don't read a lot of modern poetry, but I like Roger McGough and handful of others associated with him in the seventies. I'd like to find more poetry that fits Robert Graves' definition .... "makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck".

Peter

john tanner · Post by **john tanner** » January 3rd, 2006, 11:14 am

I enjoy listening to everyone's rendition of these poems and I am glad to be a contributor.

You can hear my reading at:
http://msu.michk12.org/~tannerj/documents/idonotlovethejt.mp3

It may be a little low on levels let me know.

outspoken1761 · Post by **outspoken1761** » January 3rd, 2006, 2:49 pm

Peter,

Thanks for mentioning the string of hex characters - for some reason, when Garageband exports to iTunes, I get that string of characters in the comments section of the ID3 tag. Who knows?

Kayvan mentioned that the recording sounded way too soft, but on my system it sounds the same as my previous two recordings (which seemed to be fine). Did you also find the recording too soft? I'm getting good levels out of my mic, and I have the mic set on 75%, which is high enough that if I'm not careful, I can peak the mic with "p" and "t" sounds.

Thanks for your input-
-Frank

LibraryLady · Post by **LibraryLady** » January 3rd, 2006, 8:17 pm

Peter,

Bartleby is definitely the best source for poetry. That's interesting that you browse by first lines, I always do authors, but first lines would surely expose me to more great works by lesser known artists. Shakespeare certainly isn't easy! I'm not a huge fan of modern poetry either, my favorite current poet is Billy Collins. Wonderfully readable and down to earth but also very musically oriented.

kri · Post by **kri** » January 3rd, 2006, 8:41 pm

I have been browsing around Librivox for the past few days, and peeking around at the forums. I love this project, and I've been trying to get up the nerve to do a first try recording myself. I figure poetry might be an easier jump in than trying to tackle a chapter in one of the book projects.

I'm pretty sure I'm not missing anything file-wise and followed all the guidelines.

Here's my stab; constructive criticism is welcomed!

http://www.greenkri.com/librivox/i_do_not_love_thee_kll.mp3

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » January 3rd, 2006, 11:33 pm

Thanks, everyone for submissions: long day at work yesterday, so I've not listened. Will do tonight.

Frank, the volume is ok for me. I suspect, at some point, we are going to have to find some objective way to standardize the maximum volume for all works. There was a note on one of the threads about using a particular mp3 utility for this. I'll put a note in the Suggestions thread.

thistlechick · Post by **thistlechick** » January 3rd, 2006, 11:35 pm

Peter Why wrote: I suspect, at some point, we are going to have to find some objective way to standardize the maximum volume for all works. There was a note on one of the threads about using a particular mp3 utility for this. I'll put a note in the Suggestions thread.

Yes, Peter, this is part of the upload process through the "Validator" ... Kara will fill you in on this =)

kayray · Post by **kayray** » January 4th, 2006, 10:58 am

Heh, I haven't actually attempted to use the volume thingy yet. I guess I should, eh? Maybe we'll try it out on your poems...

In any case, it's still going to be better if readers just make sure their volume is good and loud. I like to make it so it seems a little too loud when listening through headphones with the volume turned all the way up. (how precise...) And again, it's best to boost the input volume if at all possible, and then amplify the finished recording if necessary.

Kara

ChipDoc · Post by **ChipDoc** » January 4th, 2006, 11:10 am

Wow, that was a lot of fun! More difficult than it seems too... Great poem though! I'm afrain I'm going to have to haul these things into work to upload them using the high speed line when I read longer pieces.

http://ChipDoc.com/LibriVox/i_do_not_love_thee_norton_pdc.mp3

I look forward to doing a lot more of these!

-Chip

kayray · Post by **kayray** » January 4th, 2006, 1:51 pm

Beautiful poem.

My son, who was in the room playing with legos while I was recording this, said "I think she should just admit that she loves 'thee'!"

Here's mine:
http://s16.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3VA3J2DCSAT281RQU30E4P4UGI

Peter, let's plan to podcast a version of this poem on Sunday the 15th -- giving us a whole WEEK to get it uploaded and catalogued! We'll follow that scheme in the future. I think that will make weekends less stressful :)

Kara

AliceG · Post by **AliceG** » January 4th, 2006, 5:22 pm

Hello,

my first contribution is here:
http://s59.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3KDZO14DJO7TY24CUX85PDIAXL

A first try, though. I couldn't figure out how to reduce the background noise (or where this comes from - I hope it's not the MicFlex microphone). Any hints? I'm using Audacity for MacOS X.

kayvan · Post by **kayvan** » January 4th, 2006, 6:53 pm

AliceG wrote: A first try, though. I couldn't figure out how to reduce the background noise (or where this comes from - I hope it's not the MicFlex microphone). Any hints? I'm using Audacity for MacOS X.

Hi Alice. I think Audacity for MacOSX should have the same functions as
the other OS versions, so I'm going to tell you what I use.

Using Audacity, select a portion of the room noise (this is for applying the noise removal filter).

Normally, what you would do is this:

1. Effect->Noise Removal and click on the "Noise Profile" button.
2. Select your entire recording, then Effect->Noise Removal and click Apply.

This will leave a strange whispering sound in the background; like a
ghostly murmur, the kind you might want to use as background noise in
a horror movie.

So, that's not what you're going to do.

With the section of the room noise selected, use Effect->Amplify.
In the amplification, use anywhere from -3 to -6db to decrease the
amplitude of the noise wave. Now, use this for the "Noise Profile" and
apply to the whole recording (as above). When actually doing the noise
removal, use a very low setting on the slide-bar.

You will have to experiment for best results. I can take a fairly noisy
microphone (one I got from Radio Shack) and produce fairly clean
recordings this way.

Good luck! Ask me for clarification if this is unclear.

---Kayvan

Peter Why · Post by **Peter Why** » January 5th, 2006, 12:21 am

Thanks everyone,
I've uploaded all and will listen and check this evening.

Alice, you'd better rely on others for the quality check for the moment, as I'm not too happy with the sound quality on my set up: I'll be getting a new sound card within the next few days.

Peter

AliceG · Post by **AliceG** » January 5th, 2006, 9:26 am

Thanks Peter and kayvan!

The best thing would be to be able to record without noise in the first place.
I think the problem has something to do with the audio in/out configuration of my PowerBook and the internal mic.
I'll look into the macuser community forum for any information on this.